"Officially, copyright law still prevents all third parties from using or profiting from intellectual properties. Unofficially, that stopped applying to Samurai after the Donald Duck incident of 2029."
-From a professor's lecture on copyright law
----------------------------------------
I woke up to the sound of distant gunfire.
Groaning, I glanced at the time. 8am. That…actually wasn’t too bad. The sun sets somewhat early in the mountains, so even with everything I’d done after that point, I’d still gotten to bed around 11pm. But the Antithesis wait for no one, and it seemed the battle had begun again.
“Vanguard Alana has sent a request for a meeting. She would like you to attend the morning briefing with the other officers.”
“Do I have time for breakfast?”
“You do if you are fine with being late!”
“Ugh. Okay, give me a bar of something to inhale while I get dressed.” I watched sadly as my points dropped to 86 just for an energy bar, but at least the daily allowance still meant I had a net gain. Although I would probably lose a bit more while stocking the Dainsleif-6b with ammunition.
Deciding I was probably going to be going straight from the meeting to the front lines, I climbed into the suit after I was dressed. Like last night, it closed up around me, leaving me comfortably ensconced in my admittedly nerdy armor. I was too cozy to care.
With my SMG on one thigh and my shotgun on my back, I followed the waypoints Juny provided to the elevator and back up to the command center from last night. This time, Alana was in the main room, at the head of a table with a holographic projector showing a map of the city and the positions of various units. It was apparently real time, as some icons were appearing at the edge of the outer town and winking out on the way to the wall as I approached.
Alana looked up as I strode in, several inches taller than I was last night. I towered over the smaller woman now, but she seemed no less intimidating for it. She had a presence to her that I couldn’t match; a confidence I had to assume was from years of fighting Antithesis and living to tell the tale. Maybe even other humans.
“Impressive. Is that power armor? You’re looking much more like a samurai now,” she commented with a smile. I looked into her eyes and saw a total lack of recognition. She had no idea what the suit I was wearing resembled. I wasn’t certain if I should be relieved or disappointed, but I settled on the former as I noticed what was happening behind her.
Several men and woman were a few meters from Alana’s back, but I was focused on two in particular. One was an especially dark skinned man, thin but wiry, who was staring at my armor with awe written across his face. He knew exactly what this suit was, and couldn’t hide that he thought it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.
I would have felt proud or perhaps gratified…if not for the woman next to him. She was deeply tanned with dark hair, and had an alarming number of explosives strapped to her body. She was also currently doubled over, cackling silently as she took in what I was wearing, and my newly enhanced hearing just barely caught her wheezing the words “cosplay commando” as she elbowed the man beside her repeatedly.
Simultaneously the best and worst possible reactions to my new look. I was suddenly glad I had a helmet on, as it was doing a wonderful job of hiding my face as it heated up.
“Uh, yeah. Power armor. I was tired of getting torn up, but didn’t think I was strong enough to just wear armor, so…”
“You’ll need it today. Things are only going to get busier.” As she said that, I could feel a few more people trickle into the room, joining the others already at the table. It was weird, not needing to turn my head to know that. “And on that note, everyone is here. Let’s begin. We had very little time yesterday to discuss the situation, so this will be the first time we have everyone here at once.
“Some of you have already been informed, but I was able to get in touch with a Family liaison and I have been told that a high tier samurai will be arriving on Friday. Evidently other incursions are keeping the bulk of Family-affiliated samurai busy right now, so the best they could do was contact a more local samurai for assistance.
“That means we need to hold the line for today and tomorrow without any reinforcements. Fortunately,” Alana gestured in my direction,” another new samurai has emerged. This is Erica. She’s all the help we’re going to be getting until the Mountaineer arrives.”
One of the officers, a Major Thompson, cut in.
“Good. Lieutenant McIntire, I believe with two samurai here we should be more than capable of holding the wall. I think it best if you both remain in the inner city and help with the defense. It was one thing when you were the only one, but now that we have two, I see no reason for us not to divide the front line between you and hunker down.” Alana stared at him for a moment, taking a sip of coffee as she did. She held the stare in silence just long enough for it to become uncomfortable before responding.
“I do believe I’ve tendered my resignation already, Thomas.” Thomas Thompson? Good god, this man’s parents did not love him. “That aside, you know as well as I do that the number of Antithesis attacking us is going to rise exponentially. Dylta’s analysis agrees: wiping out the hives is the only way to slow that increase down. A hive can produce many Model Threes in a matter of hours, but the Antithesis can’t replace a hive and have it grow more combat units at the same time.”
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“And that is precisely why we have multiple rapid response teams,” the major snapped back. “We should have the three remaining squads conduct offensive operations while the two of you protect the city.”
“The fate of Lieutenant Richter’s squad should show precisely why that is a bad idea. The rapid response teams were intended to counter emerging hives that and just taken root. Without samurai-tech weapons, we cannot expect them to survive an encounter with an established hive. There’s a reason only my squad has been tackling the main hives, while the other two are hitting only sub-hives. I realize we never had time to hash this out yesterday, but I feel that some of these facts are self-evident.”
“And it seems self-evident to me that you could simply provide said weapons, but it seems as if you think being a samurai gives you years of command experience.” Seeing that he was losing this argument, the Major turned to me instead. “And what of you? Are we meant to take commands from a newly-minted samurai with no formal training as well? Or do you intend to take orders from a jumped-up lieutenant rather than experienced command staff?”
I shrugged at that. I didn’t see what he thought he would gain by pitting me against Alana. What she was saying made sense, even if he wasn’t entirely wrong about shifting to a defensive stance. Destroying hives slowed their respawn rate, but concentrating Alana and I on defense would certainly reduce casualties, at least in the short term, and with less risk of one of us biting it in enemy territory.
Although I was really just repeating what they’d each said. Not like I was an expert.
“I’m just a graphic designer. I’ll defer to her judgment.”
Thompson worked his jaw for a moment before turning and striding out of the command level, having apparently given up on influencing strategy. Most of the officers in the room simply watched him leave in silence, but some of the men and women behind Alana rolled their eyes or shook their heads.
“…moving on. Are there any other points of concern that must be addressed?” Another officer perked up and stepped forward.
“Antithesis attacks have been trending towards our flanks over time. I believe we’re going to need to reinforce those sections before their attacks grow worse,” he said, gesturing at several points on the map. The wall around the city was three sided, with one long section bordering the outer town and two shorter sections running up the side of the mountain. They had a similar no-man’s land setup in front of them, but on the other side of it was trees, not buildings.
“Why would the Antithesis be shifting their attacks? I get that they’re cunning, but a gradual approach doesn’t seem too clever,” I asked Juny after muting my external audio. Alana seemed to be reviewing the troop deployments as I spoke.
“The Antithesis are plants rather than animals, and think like plants as well! A plant does not simply go around an obstacle- it searched for weak points and tries to grow through the obstruction, then, failing that, grows around it until it finds another way.”
So it was like grass growing through pavement. The Antithesis were like roots, feeling for cracks in the defenses and only shifting focus as they failed to find purchase in the walls. I refocused on Alana as she came to a decision.
“Our defenses are spread thin as it is, but as Erica has agreed to defer to me,” she began, nodding in my direction, “I think we can afford to move four squads from the frontline and dedicate two for each flank. One squad of Stalking Tigers and one squad of militia for each. Erica, can I count on you to shore up the frontline? I’d like you to act as our mobile support and back up any section that’s getting overwhelmed.”
“I don’t mind, but how am I getting between them? It’s a small town, but not that small.”
“I’ll have an armored car detailed for your personal use. Your AI should be able to control it remotely. Our intel officer will keep you apprised of any hotspots where you’re needed.”
“Alright, I’ll play cavalry then.”
After that, several more minutes passed while Alana responded to concerns and gave out instructions. The tanks were running low on ammunition and she would need to restock them, there was some minor friction with the militia to resolve, and priority targets had to be assigned to the other rapid response teams. None of it really concerned me, but I at least tried to keep track of it all.
Finally, the meeting came to a close, and most of those present shuffled out, leaving Alana and a few non-combat officers that manned the command room.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a general, not a lieutenant,” I commented as Alana dropped into a chair and took a long series of gulps from her coffee mug. She let out a hollow laugh.
“Is that how it looked to you? I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. I would have loved to let someone else run things, but with Tavish out of the picture, there was no one else that could make the militia and PMC work together. Man was corrupt, but he was also charismatic.”
“Other than that major, I didn’t see much friction.”
“That’s because most of them don’t want to be the next Tavish. Thomas is just particularly miffed because he and Tavish were close. It helps that Captain Lafayette hasn’t been attending in person…she heads the local militia, but she’s been sending her aide because she can’t stand most of the PMC officers.” To my eyes things had looked united, but it seemed there was more below the surface. I suppose if it was a choice between working together and surviving or infighting and committing suicide-by-samurai, the people here were smart enough to choose the former.
“Should we be worried about him?” I frowned, thinking back to his departure from the meeting. He’d had murder on his face as he left the room.
“I have Dylta keeping an eye on him as much as possible, but he was a staff officer, not one of the unit commanders. He doesn’t have a group loyal to him to fall back on even if he disagrees with me. Anyway…” Alana stood up and beckoned a man over from the edge of the room. He was holding a VR helmet- a full dive version, if I wasn’t mistaken- in one hand. “This is Warrant Officer Nguyen. He’s handling intel, and he’ll be feeding you updates.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Sai- ma’am,” he said, barely stopping himself from saying something else. I could guess what, and I wasn’t expecting to find one of them among the PMC, but I suppose religion was everywhere.
“Ah, yeah, pleasure’s all mine. Juny, go ahead and connect with him. Patch him through if he has a target for us.”
“Of course!”
“As it happens, I have one right now. I’ll send you the coordinates, ma’am.”
“And I’ve got a raid to get to, so let’s all get a move on. It’s going to be a long day.”
I watched as Alana moved for the elevator, placing a helmet atop her head midstride, and followed her on the way to war.